


Can You Feel My Love Buzz?

by softer_softest



Category: Green Day
Genre: Boys In Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, almost tooth-rotting but when isn't it, billie/mike - Freeform, green day rpf - Freeform, it's thanksgiving, mike's DRUNK, mike's character's so dumb i sorta hate myself, sort of??, young billie, young mike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 12:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16429322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softer_softest/pseuds/softer_softest
Summary: It's like he needs the reminder sometimes because he does tend to forget – he tends to think he's not good enough, that he bothers the living daylights out of people he's associated with, that Billie deserves someone more consistent and deep. Mike believes his own mother is avoiding him, and he believes his second family would be miserable to have him join them for Thanksgiving dinner. And so, Billie needs to remind him how much he means to him and how lucky he is to have a best friend like him, supportive and empathetic, and a lover, too – gentle and caring and sweet.or, drunk mike for once.





	Can You Feel My Love Buzz?

**Author's Note:**

> i have a feeling some things in this come off as annoying or whatever but i can't make myself change anything right now. also i swear i can write a character when they're not drunk but this is like My Thing so i apologize in advance. as always; i do not own green day nor am i claiming any of this happened.

It's as if there's an excessive cloud of melancholy and chaos all around him, set and ready to attack him as soon as he steps foot into the almost unrecognizable apartment.

Well, that, and the puffs and puffs of smoke in the atmosphere, combined with the smell of cheap alcohol and shaving cream. They all come together and create a huge mass of stink, stuffing his nostrils to the brim, so much so that Billie has to take a moment to linger by the doorway and contemplate whether stepping in is actually worth it. It's Thanksgiving – but his surroundings remind him of a funeral.

“Wow,” he murmurs, under his breath and careful, for anything louder than that would have him inhale unnecessarily bigger amounts of almost toxic air – and, well, he doesn't want to startle who he's certain is behind this mess.

He kicks the door shut – so much for being discreet – and is careful to walk as close to the wall as possible, because the creaks of the floor have always annoyed him to the point of no return. Maybe Billie can yell at him, and then maybe he'll get it fixed.

Automatically, without giving it much thought, Billie supports himself on the doorframe of the open bedroom door and promptly unbuttons his pants, the waistband of which has been pushing against his bloated stomach for the entirety of the fifteen-minute drive it takes to get from his mom's house to this sad excuse of an apartment, plus the annoyingly large amount of time it took him to climb up the seemingly endless flights of stairs. He sighs a relieved breath, able to inhale properly again, and lifts his head to look at the mess of naked limbs on an even messier, filthy bed.

There he is, Billie thinks. It's Thanksgiving evening, the wind is blowing like hell outside, and Mike is a pathetic jumble of long legs and cigarette stumps, half-naked next to the open window, with a face shinier than the moon. Shiny, because he's been crying – looking like a clueless teen with little pieces of paper sticking to some bloody cuts on his cheeks. Nose red, eyes vibrant, and still so incredibly breathtaking.

“Do you know the front door's unlocked?”

It's the only thing he can say – the only thing he deems appropriate – kicking an empty can of beer out of his way as he walks and lingers on the foot of the bed, leaning down into Mike's line of vision. No acknowledgment, not so much as a nod or something of the sorts, anything to indicate he's not as dead as he seems. The hairs all along his body are raised high, and Billie briefly wonders why he doesn't take the half step necessary to close the window if he's so cold.

Patient silence and the smell of stale beer, mixing around and nearly putting Billie on edge. At last, Mike gives him the much-awaited shrug of his shoulders, obviously not seeing Billie as worthy of even sparing him a glance. Billie sighs – nearly heaves as his stomach gurgles painfully – and plops down onto the mattress, horizontally over Mike's shins. There's an empty promise close to escaping his lips – something along the lines of never again accepting the invitation to his mom's Thanksgiving dinner, though he knows he will never in his life follow through.

Mike tries to sniff through a stuffy nose, and Billie's eyes follow the movement of his nimble fingers, putting his half-finished cigarette in his mouth and taking a respectable drag. Billie _has_ to, at this point – he _has_ to start rubbing at Mike's thigh because it's all too abstract for his liking. Mike's eyes follow the movement of Billie's strokes, with the cigarette in his mouth and a beer can between his legs, furrowing his brows as he lets out the smoke.

“Don't get me wrong,” Billie starts, hand stilling on top of Mike's thigh. He pauses as Mike's boxers catch his eye, but he supposes that scoffing at the ridiculous pattern of them would be highly inappropriate right now, so he opts to ignore the white skulls on a black background for now. “Because staring at you is one of my favorite pastimes,” he smiles encouragingly, even if Mike is still not looking his way, “but if you're not gonna say anything anytime soon I'm gonna go sit in the living room.”

It does get Mike to lift his head, startlingly enough, and it's the first time Billie manages to get a look at his impossibly dilated pupils. No shit he's drunk – Billie had realized as much as soon as he stepped foot into this gas tank of an apartment. His look is a mixture of confused, small, and melancholic, one that only a drunken Mike can muster, and he doesn't have to offer him anything more than that inquiring gaze for Billie to get it, resuming the rubbing.

 _“Because,”_ he sighs, in a dramatic fashion which Mike would normally scoff at him for – another time when he wasn't drunk out of his mind, “I can't fucking breathe in here.”

Mike sniffs again. This is the only answer Billie's gonna get for a while, or so he assumes, and he taps his fingers on his own thigh, retreating from Mike's own. He's beginning to feel lightheaded, too, and he's beginning to forget how fresh oxygen is supposed to feel like. Mike attempts to wipe his eyes with his forearm – a reminder that he's still very much crying – nearly burning his hair with his cigarette in the process.

Sniffing, always sniffing, “Why do you say that?”

The fact that he's spoken almost startles Billie, and he resists the urge to comment on just how groggy his voice sounds. It nearly doesn't sound like him, but the softness of his tone is so characteristically Mike – it makes him melt every single time. But now, though, he's frustrated.

“Might have something to do with you fucking swimming in cigarette stumps,” he explodes, pushing Mike's leg around until he has to lift it up and rest his head on his knee pitifully. Billie stares on in disbelief until he decides he's had enough and stands up - with a high level of difficulty on his stomach's part. Fucking mashed potatoes.

The first time he pushes Mike around, there's no response. It's like he's fallen back into the unresponsive state in which Billie found him in, from which he only recovered at the realization that Billie was going to move away from him. The second time, he goes a bit too hard and nearly rams Mike's head into the wall – but hey, Mike's looking at him now, albeit confusedly. Third time comes around, and Billie's incredulous, grabbing Mike's wrist and pulling uselessly.

“C'mon,” he mumbles softly. The softness must trigger something within him, whatever it is, and he's crying again, the hand in which he's grasping his cigarette curling in front of his temple. Billie sighs in resignation, reaching out to wipe under Mike's eye, his cheekbone and his temple, ruffling the side of his hair. “You shouldn't be allowed to drink.”

And then he tries again, pulling at Mike's arm and forcing him to come closer to him before he grows roots in his bed. There's resistance, God knows there is, and Billie's close to giving up if it wasn't for Mike following last minute and nearly throwing him off balance. Still, he has to support Mike's weight on his side as he tries – keyword: _tries_ – to walk over to the living room, because he can imagine that Mike's legs are nearly numb and achy right now. And, well, he's positively shitfaced.

Billie drags and drags – he drags his own feet, and he drags Mike along with him – feeling about ready to explode. It's hard enough for him to walk on his own right now, let alone with a long-legged beast on his back. By the time he reaches Mike's sad excuse of a couch and drops the latter on it frustratingly, he can't do much more than collapse himself, huffing out loudly and waiting for Mike to do the same. Or at least something – anything to indicate he's listening to him.

The only thing Mike does is take another long drag and promptly rub his hand along his tear-stained face, curling in on himself against the bigger couch pillow. Billie scratches at his skull, observing Mike's movements, staring at him.

He finally decides to draw the line as Mike goes about chewing on the sofa cushion. “Stop that,” he muses, pushing Mike's face away from the pillow, his hand lingering for a little while to stroke at hard cheekbone. He purses his mouth and retreats his hand, opting to use it as a rest for his heavy head instead, and sighs as Mike presses his mouth against the pillow once again. “I don't mean to be pushy or anything... but I'd like to know the reason you called.”

Mike closes his swollen eyes shut for a brief second, and he opens them again, sniffing dramatically. “Didn't know I couldn't call you just because,” he murmurs, muffled against the pillow, but Billie gets every word of it anyway.

He chuckles incredulously, rubbing his forehead with two stiff fingers. “Why are you fucking crying?”

It's really easy to figure out just how drunk he is. Billie knew as much – but Mike can't even focus his eyes on one spot for at once, and Billie finds himself searching his eyes humorously. As distracted as he is, Mike focuses enough to mumble, “I missed you,” with his ever so groggy voice, and then goes back to chewing the pillow.

“That's not why you're crying, you prick!” Billie pokes his cheek ever so frustratingly, and he can't help but chuckle at Mike's slow, lazy reaction to it. He looks at Billie's finger, then straight into Billie's eyes, ending up closing his own leisurely. He then wipes his runny nose on his bare forearm, and it's all too ridiculous for Billie to just stare. “I know you're, like, hammered right now,” he shakes his head, pausing as Mike takes another drag off of the fucking cig. He waits until he's exhaled the smoke. “But we spent the whole day together yesterday. Remember?”

Well, he _must_ remember. They did have fun yesterday – if it can even be considered as yesterday, seeing as Billie left this very apartment at about seven this morning, after a night of doing anything but sleeping. It was mostly because it was almost certain that they wouldn't see each other today – oh, how naive.

He zones back in when Mike nods slowly, skeptically, like he's not even sure he remembers. He can't watch him anymore. Billie reaches forward and grabs Mike's head – always careful – pulling it against his chest helpfully. Mike nods again, unsure, almost as if he's trying to feel how soft the material of Billie's shirt is.

“Well, that's a good sign,” Billie murmurs. But Mike doesn't seem to think so, because his back starts to shake again, lightly. “Don't cry again, Mikey,” he mumbles, rubbing the shaking shoulders. Mike tries to hold his breath naively, like a little child, thinking it would be effective to make his crying subside. He lifts his head, grabbing Billie's attention.

“My mom's in London,” Mike whispers, and he retreats, resting his head on one of the bigger sofa pillows as he waits for Billie to reply. As if he doesn't already know. There was no chance he wouldn't be aware of it – it was a pretty big deal when Mike's mom and his sisters boarded their much-awaited, from their part, flight. It was just a few days ago, even, and they had planned to spend their Thanksgiving there, with Ms. Pritchard's newest boyfriend and his son. Billie can't believe Mike's still crying about this.

“Of course this is why you're crying,” he mumbles in sheer disbelief, so low Mike doesn't even hear it. “For God's sake, Mike, they're coming back in, like, a couple days,” he tells him instead, willing himself to believe laughing is out of the question for now. The whole situation is just so, so ridiculous. Everyone knows Mike's a momma's boy – it's a well-known fact – but this is too much, even for him. A skeptical pause. “Is this really why you're crying?” he asks carefully, a little chuckle escaping him despite himself, and Mike nods self-consciously. “Oh, God.”

“Bill,” Mike's voice trembles, and Billie sighs as he pulls Mike's much-beloved head back into his chest. “I've been calling her since noon,” he rushes out, the words nearly tumbling out in waves without his control. “A-And she won't pick up. Neither will Myla – I didn't even bother trying to call Laura.”

It's not at all surprising that Billie's eyes start to get watery. It's not to him, at least, because he's never been one to be able to keep his ground when someone breaks down in front of him – let alone Mike, who has never ceased to influence his mood in one way or another. The fact that Mike has always been this much more vulnerable and open while drunk doesn't help at all, and it's a serious transition from Mike being the one trying to cheer Billie up by any means, on the regular.

He tries to sniff quietly, but Mike hears him, lifts his head, and starts to bawl harder.

“Jesus, Mike,” Billie chuckles, with a hidden hint of frustration, and wipes under his eyes aggressively. He looks at Mike, contemplates his options, and slides a single hand into Mike's hair. “They're probably having fun, man,” he reasons as he scratches Mike's skull, smoothing out each greasy tangle he comes across. “You know they can't be on their phone the whole time.”

He continues to observe him as Mike looks right back at him – through the wet, tangled mess his eyelashes are – and he grabs the side of his face, carefully so that Billie's beloved hand doesn't slide out of his hair. Billie supposes his head hurts – well, damn well it does, after the twenty-something cans of beer he's downed. Or a number close to that. Billie wasn't here.

“I mean, yeah,” Mike hiccups, “but she told me she'd call.”

Billie hates to be repetitive, but Mike really, really shouldn't be allowed to drink. That much is obvious to him, and Billie continues to stare as Mike wipes his nose on his arm once again, and then again on the sofa pillow. He shakes his head, “I don't know what to tell you, Mike,” his hand doesn't slide out of Mike's hair for a second, rubbing in a comforting sort of way only Billie can provide. “I'd be pissed, too, but crying?” he chews on his lip skeptically. “I hate to see you cry.”

Mike holds his breath again, under the illusion that it will somehow calm his breathing, but he ends up breathing even heavier than before. Billie rubs at his back slowly, coaxing him to take deep breaths, while internally wondering what Mike's family are really doing right now. A Thanksgiving dinner is more likely, though, sure, giving him a quick phone call would have been nice. The fact that Mike is sitting alone, getting wasted in his apartment on Thanksgiving is giving him a heartache, which can't help but bring the question of why this even was an option to mind. It's something to think about as Mike regains the ability of somewhat comprehensible thoughts.

“You could have come over to mine,” Billie says, almost as an afterthought to this whole ordeal. But, yeah, if he remembers correctly, he did make this offer late last night, when they were both high and giggly and mesmerized by each other – as they always are so late when the universe seems that it doesn't exist around them. Mike dismissed it, and then they were both too unfocused to recall it later, but the offer was there. “Mom missed you, you know. And Al's missed kicking your ass playing video games – oh, and my lil' cousins asked about you, too! You got that Georgie whipped, Mikey – she kept whining about missing you.”

There's a little pause in the glumness of Mike's expression – like the calm after the storm, or the calm before an even bigger storm, if you will – and he looks curious, but also delighted upon hearing that someone's missed him. _Wait 'til you hear how much I kept thinking of you,_ Billie vaguely thinks.

“Wh-What about Bobby?” he asks reluctantly, like a small child – God, he looks so small. Billie's afraid of breaking him by even looking at him too long or too intensely, what with still being hunched in on himself, brittle and vulnerable.

“Bobby talked my ear off about wanting you to give him a piggyback again. He was all like _'Mike this, Mike that'_ – you've spoiled him too much,” Billie continued, relishing in the satisfied bling in Mike's stormy eyes. It was all true, and sometimes he even wondered if Georgie and Bobby loved Mike more than him – but then he thought that wouldn't be possible, even if they tried. Mike's lovable and all, sure, but Billie was another kind of whipped by now.

As Mike rests his head on the sofa cushion, feeling it drooping, heavy on his shoulders, Billie places a gentle, comforting hand on his knee. It's small and warm, so he leaves it there, for both of their sake. “I wanna give Bobby a piggyback ride.” He thinks for a moment, and then he looks up through sticky eyelashes. “I wanna give _you_ a piggyback ride.”

Billie sighs fondly, petting Mike's knee once before he pulls his head in for the hundredth time tonight, and rests it over his own stomach. Mike doesn't struggle, and puts both of his legs up in time with Billie's positioning, so that he's lying vertically on the couch, with Billie running his hands through his hair comfortingly. He thinks he's starting to cry again.

“Jesus, Mike, if you start again-”

“I wouldn't wanna spoil it,” Mike rushes out, burying his mouth in the material of Billie's jeans, over his thighs, as if reprimanding himself for talking. Billie's eyebrows raise without his consent, on their own accord, and his automatic stroking of Mike's hair comes to a halt. As if sensing the silent inquiry, Mike reluctantly starts to speak up again. “Your dinner. If I came over, th-then I'd be miserable the whole night and I'd just... ruin it.”

It's not that Mike hasn't said anything dumb before. Sure he has – plenty, plenty of times, even – but it's just the absurdity of his words that has Billie at a loss for words. His mouth is open, but he can't think of anything to say, except the obvious.

“You're so fucking stupid,” he breathes, taking his sweet time smoothing out the hair that's fallen in front of Mike's face back while the latter continues to cry, softer this time, calmer. There's a little giggle hidden in between sobs, and Billie's ears are trained to catch such things, such pretty sounds amongst the ugliness of the world. He pauses. “I love you, alright?”

It's like he needs the reminder sometimes, because he does tend to forget – he tends to think he's not good enough, that he bothers the living daylights out of people he's associated with, that Billie deserves someone more consistent and deep. Mike believes his own mother is avoiding him, and he believes his second family would be miserable to have him join them for Thanksgiving dinner. And so, Billie needs to remind him how much he means to him and how lucky he is to have a best friend like him, supportive and empathetic, and a lover, too – gentle and caring and sweet.

Silence. “Hey,” Billie drops, nudging the side of Mike's wet, cold face, just to make sure he's still breathing. That manages to make Mike look back at him, still tearing up with swollen eyes.

He gets to observe Mike's face for as long as time allows before Mike lurches forward, away from Billie's legs, and bends his torso, in a way that would indicate he's about to throw up. He doesn't.

“False alarm,” Billie comments solemnly, as Mike lies back down on his stomach. He's got the hiccups, Billie notices – both from his drunken state and his constant sobbing. He thinks about it. “Jesus, twenty bucks says you don't even remember why you're crying right now.”

There's no answer, as expected, but Mike does take on a skeptical expression like he's straining his brain to remember what's got him so upset. It doesn't help with Billie's urge to laugh at this whole experience – not because he's mean, or doesn't understand where Mike's coming from, but because he's so in love this feels like a normal night hanging out, just because Mike's there with him. So, so dumb, yet he doesn't mind as Mike starts to weep on his thigh once again.

“I got your pants all wet,” Mike observes quietly, trying to wipe them down uselessly, with his bare arm. He huffs as Billie starts pinching the side of his leg, trying to convey the message of _'You're so fucking dumb, but I don't even care at this point.'_

“I don't care,” he says indeed, removing his hands from Mike to run them through his own hair, as a way to comfort himself. The fact that Mike's head is lying on his still very much swollen stomach doesn't help him relax one bit, and there's pressure on his part, but moving Mike now doesn't seem like such a good idea. He tries to breathe, shallowly.

It's like Mike hears his thoughts – and it's not the first time, but still – and he removes his head from Billie's stomach, resting it on his thighs instead, as he turns around. His body may be facing the ceiling, but his eyes are looking straight at Billie Joe, always red and swollen and pretty blue, inevitably holding his gaze. Billie stares right back inquiringly, with a little furrow of his eyebrows Mike would normally physically smooth out with his fingers if he was in a position to move his limbs without hurting himself or poking Billie in the eye. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on which standpoint Billie looks at this from – Mike doesn't seem to know he's pissed out of his mind, or does and doesn't care. He lifts his arm slowly, trying to smooth out the crinkles in Billie's forehead, almost in amazement. Said crinkles disappear as soon as Billie's expression changes, from questioning to fond, but Mike still tries to smooth out his face anyway, starting from his bushy eyebrows and ending up sliding down the bridge of his nose softly, dipping in his cupid's bow.

“Are you having a moment?” Billie asks gently, jokingly, his mouth barely moving in fear of Mike removing his fingers from his face. Mike shrugs in confusion, carrying on his little tour of Billie's face – bad skin and weak jawline. He pauses for a second, which earns him another questioning eyebrow lift from Billie, and he looks like he's ready to choke on something. Billie pokes at his hand. “What?”

He shakes his head, trying to look nonchalant in his confused state, but he still looks to be on the verge of an ultimately important spiritual awakening – or something like that, Billie isn't in his head. He pokes at another part of Mike, his stomach, in hopes of jeering him into talking, before he bursts out of curiosity.

“What's the matter, then?”

Mike contemplates his options, and then opens his mouth to speak. “Marry me.”

A pause. A dumb, useless pause, filled with humorous confusion and disbelief, before Billie quickly recovers and slaps Mike's hand away from his face. “Shut the _fuck_ up,” he laughs, pushing Mike's thigh away for good measure. He's still laughing as Mike shakes his head frantically, like he's asking to be taken seriously, with such a ridiculous admission. “You dreadful prick... oh my _God...”_

“No, no, Bill,” he sits up, and the half-nakedness makes this all the more hilarious, because Billie feels as if he's being proposed to by Jesus in the flesh after he's been nailed to the cross. He supposes Jesus would have gotten as drunk as Mike at some point in his life, right? “Listen! This is my official proposal.”

It physically hurts him to laugh, because the pressure in his abdomen combined with the pressure of the chunks and chunks of food he's chewed down tonight is making him nearly want to puke, but he can't help it. Really, who would be able to help it? He takes a moment to look at Mike's hopeful expression, and then sighs loudly, in defeat, wiping down some of the tears under his eyes. “Okay, I'm sorry. Please, carry on.”

“Marry me,” he repeats joyously, pausing to burp out a beer bubble, sending Billie into another laughing fit. “No, no!” he hisses out, putting a single finger over Billie's mouth as if to shush him. Billie apologizes with a nod. “Because I love you and you love me and- and you, uh- you make great eggs, a-”

“I can't cook for shit.”

Mike pauses. “Then who made me those eggs?”

“Alright, Mike,” Billie quickly sidesteps, resting his tired head on the palm of his hand. Mike's eyes are still wide and red-rimmed, expectant. “Tell you what,” he begins, fitting a single hand on the side of Mike's face, cupping his jaw softly. “If you remember to ask me again tomorrow, then we'll talk about it. Sound good?”

“But I want an answer now,” Mike points out petulantly, placing a hand over the one Billie has on his face, holding it there and basking in its warmth. Billie almost throws up on the spot, with the overwhelming sweetness of it all.

“I promise,” he nods huffily, rubbing his eye with one hand. “If you can remember tomorrow morning, we'll talk about it. It's a pretty easy thing to do, don't you think?”

“Well, _yeah-”_

“There's my answer,” Billie quips happily, leaning in to lay a quick, single kiss on Mike's mouth, just to shut him up and prevent him from talking further – inevitably chewing on Billie's nerves. It's not the first time Mike's said something like this while drunk – Billie doesn't mean to suck his own dick, but he supposes Mike's hammered brain can't process his indescribable love for Billie Joe without wanting to do something extreme... or something akin to that. Last time Billie offered his simple explanation to Mike while sober he got kicked in the head, so. He huffs. “I can't believe the first reason for marrying me you thought of was the cooking skills I don't have nor need...”

Mike doesn't hear him, but he does give up, eventually laying his head back down on Billie's stomach, much to Billie's dismay. He tries not to huff and puff too loudly, but the pressure's still there, making him so uncomfortable to the point of putting both of his hands on his upper stomach, much like a pregnant woman would.

Mike looks up at him curiously, and then he peeks down at Billie's bulging stomach. He, too, places a hand on it, in between Billie's own, and it's all too humorous for Billie not to know where this is going. He's tempted to tell Mike to shut up before he even speaks, but that would somehow end up frustrating him even further. He just waits for the other shoe to drop patiently, staring at Mike observe his stomach.

“Your stomach's hard,” he points out, as if Billie hasn't been silently suffering the whole evening, and starts to feel all over it, “and big.”

“Ugh, yeah,” Billie agrees quietly, furrowing his brows at Mike's focused expression. “I feel like I'm gonna burst. I, um,” he pauses, Mike's obsession with his stomach becoming weird at this point. “Uh. Yeah. I'm so bloated I can barely walk, you know... Mom's cooking...”

Mike sniffs quietly, his eyes never straying from the bulge under Billie's shirt. Suddenly, he freezes up, and his eyes fill with tears once again, dropping his forehead on Billie's abdomen and wetting his shirt, like he's been doing all night. Billie's alarmed.

 _“What?_ What is it _now?”_ he asks incredulously, leaning down to put his face as close to Mike's as he can, and it's taking every last bit of his willpower not to bash Mike's face in at this point. This makes absolutely no sense, and there Billie is, thinking there wouldn't be anymore crying tonight. He impatiently nudges Mike's shoulder, _“Mike.”_

Mike mumbles something, buried and muffled in Billie's shirt, and Billie has to ask him to repeat it before he starts swinging. Mike sniffs through a stuffy nose and wipes his eyes on Billie's thighs. “When were you gonna tell me you're pregnant?”

And, right. Billie _knew_ it was coming – and by _'it'_ he means something so utterly ridiculous and frustrating it could only be thrown together in the dusty, scary depths of Mike's drunken mind – but he wasn't expecting something with this level of ridiculousness. He doesn't even know how to respond to that, but he does know that Mike's started crying again, definitely not as hard as before, but it still makes his shoulders shake softly. Billie guesses even the most minor, slightly overwhelming thought would be able to set him off into another fit – perhaps paternity, or the terrifying thought of co-parenting with Billie, maybe – so he tries not to blame him too much. It's harder than it sounds.

“Is this- This is a legitimate question right now,” is all he can say, and he can almost positively state he can feel Mike's disheveled state on a spiritual level by now. He feels as if there's nothing more to say, but there's also something that needs to be said.

Mike doesn't reply to Billie's comment – either he ignores it or he can't talk through the muffled sobs, Billie can't tell which one – but he does gaze painfully at Billie's recently pronounced baby bump (he struggles not to laugh even thinking about it). With a couple hot tears rolling down his exhausted skin, he asks, “Is it mine?”

“I think we should go to sleep,” Billie concludes, because he'll be damned if he sits here explaining male anatomy to Mike, who's too hammered to remember any of it tomorrow. He softly pulls Mike upright, who has a hand temporarily stuck on top of Billie's stomach, and he sighs before he stands up in front of him, beckoning him closer. “C'mon, Mikey, up you go.”

“What about my baby?” Mike murmurs tiredly, standing on his feet with a great level of difficulty as Billie tries to support him, finding it a little hard to with the height difference. He huffs and puffs, eventually able to hold Mike upright as he takes the necessary steps forward to reach his bedroom.

 _“D'aw,_  who, me?” Billie jokes, still dragging Mike behind him impatiently. He pauses on the doorway of Mike's bedroom, taking a few calming breaths in, being awfully reminded of the odor engulfing the entirety of the room. At least the open window's helped a bit.

“I mean m-” Mike pauses, holding his head in his hand as he supports himself on the wall. Billie finds the chance to run over to the bed, throwing the countless empty beer cans off of the mattress and putting the nearly full ashtray on top of the night-table, sighing out in exhaustion. He lies down and pats the space next to him, and Mike luckily gets it, taking slow steps forward until he reaches the side of the bed. He hisses as he hits his shin on the foot of it, but drops down heavily anyway, his head close to Billie's own. “The baby...” he grumbles sleepily.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” Billie grumbles back, lifting his arms up as Mike crawls closer, putting half of his body on top of Billie's own, with his head lying on his chest comfortably.

“Okay,” he says, without giving it much thought. It earns him a chuckle from Billie, and a butterfly-light kiss on the forehead, then another one on his hairline. Mike tries to return the favor, with a sloppy kiss on Billie's chest, over his shirt, and an even sloppier one on his neck.

And somehow, the universe feels as if it doesn't exist once again.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for checking this out!


End file.
